Sports
Hockey

99ers 'battled hard' but fall short in novice tier I

Griffin Mordue of the Brantford 99ers tries unsuccessfully to score on Lorne Park Clarkson Wild goalie David Healy during a novice tier 1 game on Thursday at the civic centre during the annual Wayne Gretzky International Hockey Tournament. (Brian Thompson/The Expositor)

Things did not go according to plan this week for the Brantford Minor Hockey Association's novice tier I team.

Playing at the 48th annual Wayne Gretzky International Hockey Tournament, the 99ers were eliminated from playoff contention after posting a win, a tie and two losses.

"The kids are having a lot of fun," said Brantford coach Rob Moreland. "Of course they're going to be down. They're eight-year-olds. They don't like losing.

"But we've won two tournaments. We won the Ottawa tournament and we won the Burlington tournament."

Those two tournament titles - the Capital Volunteer Cup and MD Challenge Cup - only tell part of the team's story. Coming into the Gretzky tournament, Brantford was an impressive 19-7-2 overall.

A key to the season has been team chemistry.

"The strength of the team is how they jell," Moreland said.

"And, defensively, we don't have a lot of goals scored against us. Both our goaltenders (Devin Coleman and Max Barkovich) are very strong."

With this particular group of players, who were born in 2009, the coaches have worked a lot on backward skating, transitioning and other skills.

"Basically we're trying to teach them the fundamentals of hockey," said Moreland. "We do a lot of skill development but we also do a lot of breakouts.

"They've never been shown this before, in years past, so it's kind of new to them but they've excelled dramatically from Day 1."

The 99ers came up against some stiff competition on Thursday morning at Lions Park against the Stratford Warriors.

Stratford took an early 2-0 lead against Brantford before the 99ers trimmed that deficit in half with a second-period goal from Luc Savoie. Stationed out front all alone, Savoie was able to wrist the puck past Carter Keating's glove to make it 2-1. Lucas Durand got the lone assist on the goal.

Following a short-handed Warriors goal that made it 3-1, the 99ers came right back when Nathan Da Silva scored on the power play.

Taking the puck in his own end, Da Silva went end to end, beating Keating by sliding the puck in along the ice. Connor Moreland got the helper.

Special teams then propelled Stratford to the win in the third period as it scored twice on the power play, once while short-handed and once at even strength to secure the 7-2 victory.

The Warriors were led by the Chaput twins - Hudsyn and Maddyx - who combined for six goals. Nate Van Bakel got the last goal.

"They have two kids who play on the Regional Gold (spring all-star) team," Moreland said of Hudsyn, who scored five goals, and Maddyx, who scored one.

"They're a pretty good hockey team. Our kids battled hard. We just couldn't clean up the rebounds and we didn't execute well."

Moreland and his coaches will continue to prepare the players for the end of the season and also something down the road. Many of the kids on the tier I team will be trying out for their first 'AAA' team - minor atom - in the spring. Moreland said he has a good feeling about the number of players who can make it.

"You want to see kids progress through the system and these kids have been phenomenal," said the coach.

"I do see the potential of half this team going to 'AAA' next year. And they're going to excel at 'A' if they don't make the 'AAA' team."